


dream on, but don't imagine they will all come true

by AssyEr



Series: Soulmates But Mech Flavored [3]
Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon-Typical Violence, Carmilla Is Her Own Warning, F/M, How Do I Tag, Hurt No Comfort, Medical Experimentation, Not Happy, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, after New Texas but before Nastya, and bi jonny d'ville, because I say so, no beta we die like men, well a bit less than normal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:33:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26098687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AssyEr/pseuds/AssyEr
Summary: Carmilla and Jonny, after New Texas. She wants him to find his soulmate. After some persuation, he complies.
Relationships: Dr Carmilla & Jonny d'Ville, Jonny d'Ville/Original Female Character
Series: Soulmates But Mech Flavored [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1867225
Comments: 11
Kudos: 37
Collections: Writer's Month 2020





	dream on, but don't imagine they will all come true

**Author's Note:**

> written for writer's month, prompt being True Love's Kiss
> 
> My layout: Carmilla and Jonny are briefily mentioned.  
> Me: Got it. A thousand words or more.

Things have gotten… worse.

Things have changed since New Texas. It had been fine, at the beginning, as he had imagined. Lot of traveling, lot of helping the doc, lot of fun. They had been having a good time.

But Jonny had managed to fuck up, because of course he had. He always knew he was an annoying little shit, that had been always clear for him, but he thought that perhaps she didn’t care that much. She had told him that he was perfect, what she had been looking for so long.

She would hug him and congratulate him when he won them some money at whatever casino they were visiting, because she knew he liked them. And when he lost, she would clap at his violence, laughing while he broke his knuckles against some old man’s face, handing him bullets whenever his chamber ran out.

And then she would held his hand or his body, depending on how the fight ended. Carmilla would take him to the med bay, even if most of his injuries were healed by the time he got there, sit him on the bed and patiently clean the blood out of him, with a wet rag or cotton if it was a particularly tender part. Jonny would close his eyes in pure delight, hearing her praises and getting a small kiss on the forehead. After that he would jump down, with her putting an arm over his shoulder as she directed them over the kitchen.

He always insisted on making dinner for her. He liked feeling useful, helpful. To contribute. They were Jonny and the doc, and they looked after the other.

Jonny felt safe. Loved.

He didn’t anymore.

It started with his food. It was no longer as tasty as before, or a little overdone, or salty. Too bland, he needed to learn to make more things, they couldn’t just survive over the eight plates he knew how to do.

She had looked exasperated at him when he asked her to teach him to cook.

Which was perfectly understandable. The doc was too busy already, with all of her work. She spent all day and night in her lab, she didn’t have time to make food, much less to _teach_ him. He was a grown boy, he could learn on his own.

That’s what he did. And then, he learnt to fight better, because she couldn’t always be there to heal him, and beside it was stupid for her to do so. She had already given him immortality, there was no need for her to treat him like a baby.

He was a grown man, he could look after himself.

Carmilla started asking him more. And more, and _more_. Jonny did his best to please her, but he was too dumb, too clumsy, too stupid to do things right. And stubborn beside that, because sometimes he didn’t want to give in. To give.

She would get angry then. He didn’t like when she got angry. He started hiding from her, a bottle near him.

The doc didn’t mean to. Her work got to her, sometimes, and she got so stressed she just couldn’t deal with _Jonny_ on top of that.

The first time she got real mad, he had hidden in the vents until dinner the next day, time by which he had reasoned he couldn’t keep like that anymore. And if he showed him how sorry he was, perhaps she would forgive him. Give him another chance. That’s all he wanted.

He started cooking early that night, because he didn’t want to fuck up anything. Jonny had made chili, one of the first plates he had ever made her in the spirit of good memories. She used to compliment him so much about it. He had hope.

By those days she was already spending all of her time in that lab of her, so he took a trail and carried her dinner there. He knocked the door and waited until she responded to enter, presenting her the food as a peace offering of sorts.

Carmilla had looked at it, and then at Jonny, telling him that she was craving something else.

So, things have gotten worse.

But they had taken a whole new level when she went back to paying attention to him. Or rather to… it. The thing on his arm. Which he kept covered at all times.

He still didn’t want to look for his person, he felt like his life was complicated enough. But she insisted, and complained, and shouted at him when he refused, not to show her, because she had already taken as many looks as she had pleased, but to go after them.

Looking for a soulmate required a lot of paperwork, and what was more difficult for her to get, an oral interview. She could not get her hands on them without his cooperation.

She screamed at him about how selfish he was, of how important it was for her to truly understand the reach of her work, the mechanization. Understand eternity.

He had screamed back that she had a mark of her own to experiment upon.

It turned out she still had many test to run on him.

He hid from her for a month.

One day, he woke up in the middle of the night on his bed. He didn’t remember getting there, he remembered passing out in the middle of the corridor after shooting himself or drowning on alcohol, who was he to tell.

A hand ran through his hair, petting it softly. He froze in place, not daring to even open his eyes.

Jonny had no idea of how long she stood there, sitting on his bed with her hands on him, and whispering soft things. Like the old times. Apologizing to him, telling him that she was sorry of how she had been treating him, how cruel she had been. She told him of a woman she met so long ago, how she still loved her, how she didn’t want to turn into her. And of another one that had left her before she had the chance to make things better.

She begged him to stay with her.

He didn’t say anything, just let her talk, and then, much against his will, and fell asleep on her ministrations.

It took him a week not to disappearing each time he heard her footsteps. She still came at night, when he was asleep and thus couldn’t run away, and talked softly to him.

He was still tense after that time, even if she didn’t scream or got angry at him when sharing a space. The doc even cooked for Jonny, all meals, no matter if he told her that he had already eaten (she didn’t force him to eat, just… left the food there. Just in case, she would say).

A week of that and he was eating her food, and grew to expect the night visits.

Sometimes, he wouldn’t even pretend to be asleep. It’s not like she hadn’t known since the beginning, after all, and there was no use to the façade.

Jonny would look up at her, not saying anything as she smiled down at him and kept petting. She passed her hands through his hair, his nose, his cheeks. His ears and lips.

Not his neck, tough.

He would stay there and enjoy the attention, breathing softly and pretending not to hear her words. That nothing had happened in between New Texas and the moment. That everything was fine. And if Carmilla was sitting close to his head, he would put it on her lap, and she would chuckle a bit before returning to saying lovely compliments at him.

There were nights like those that she stayed until morning. Jonny would wake up and tense, not knowing how to react, but she would pay his discomfort no attention and just walk out of the room, telling him that breakfast would soon be ready.

By the third week he believed her.

Or maybe he didn’t, but he wanted it to be real so bad. He wanted to go back to those first days, when they were a team and had each other’s back. When she would kiss his forehead and compliment the food he made for her.

Jonny wanted her to love him like before.

That’s why, two months later, he told her yes.

He felt ready to meet them. To love and be loved back. To make Carmilla happy.

He shouldn’t have. He shouldn’t have, he shouldn’t have, he shouldn’t have done so. It was all his fault now.

She had found them. Jonny had not.

The doc told him that she needed to do some test, take notes, to then properly compare them to the results she would get after they both meet. Jonny didn’t know shit about science, but he did know a thing or two about lies, and that hadn’t seem all that honest to him.

He pretended not to hear the screams, and when the pillows over his ears weren’t enough, he told himself that he had no way of knowing what was really going on. He had screamed as strongly when he had been on her table, too, and he didn’t regret it, because they had been necessary things, and the doc loved him again now.

He didn’t regret it.

But the screaming continued and continued, and there was only so much ignoring he could do, so many directions he could look as not to see the red spots on the border of her mouth and her teeth.

Jonny couldn’t take it anymore.

That was why he was walking the corridors of the ship so late, and early enough that she wouldn’t see him missing until he had already done it.

The Aurora was helping him. Jonny couldn’t pretend to really understand what the ship was. Carmilla apparently had raised it, _her_ , and she appeared to have some sort of sentience, enough at least to tell him that when he needed her she would help him, days before the idea had even crossed his mind.

The door to Carmilla’s lab was open, as Aurora had promised. He stepped into the room, and saw her for the first time.

She was bounded to a table with various straps, leaving her practically immobilized. Her head had been shaved, and the clothes she wore were no protection for the cold room. He avoided looking at her arm, or her neck, and instead searched for her eyes.

His soulmate was looking at him, utterly and completely terrified.

What he was about to do… he needed to do it. He couldn’t just, leave her like that. He had made a mistake, an enormous one, and he had to own it up. It, it was for the best. Aurora had agreed with him. There was no better option, and he would have preferred it if he was on her situation.

It was the right thing to do.

Right?

He took a step towards her, and she started squirming. Jonny stopped dead on his track.

Jonny couldn’t… not with her like that, not with her so afraid of him. He had come to help her, she shouldn’t be afraid. He didn’t want her to fear him.

For the first time since his mistake, he reached towards the bandana on his arm, eyes locked on hers, and untied it, letting his mark free. He showed it to her.

“I’m here to help you” he told her, his voice barely above a whisper, but in the quiet of the room it was enough.

He got nearer, and untied her because the bindings couldn’t be comfortable. She still looked suspiciously at him, until, once free, she extended her arm, the one with the mark, and spoke something in a language he couldn’t understand.

The intention couldn’t have been clearer, however, and he extended his mark next to hers.

A perfect match.

Jonny hadn’t realized how close they were until she kissed him, fully on the lips, and he could feel her smiling against his lips. It was the first time he had been kissed there, and he liked it. Jonny reciprocated.

When she finally pulled back she was still smiling, short chuckles escaping her mouth, and Jonny was sure that must have been the most musical sound the ship had ever contained. Her eyes practically glowed as she spoke to him, only one word, repeatedly. Maybe it was her name.

He didn’t want to know. Jonny decided to get on with it already, and placing both hands on her head (she didn’t even tense, or flinched, only half closed her eyes at the seemingly caress) he snapped her neck.

His soulmate fell limp to the floor.

Jonny sat down on the floor, and held her body on her arms, rocking unconsciously in place. He stood there for a long while, watching both marks disappear at the same time (he didn’t know, yet, but it would take him exactly one week to grow a new one).

Carmilla would be mad, no, furious with him.

He found himself not caring that much.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I was not going to write something happy.
> 
> Me: I can't write anymore, this is just futile, head empty.  
> Me in math class: The ideas! The inspiration! I was born to write and enjoy life!  
> ...I am not good at math.
> 
> Thank you for reading! if you feel like it, comments and kudos feel to me like, that beautiful breeze of cold air on a really hot day, the feeling of wind on your face.


End file.
